Skyrim meets Westeros in this special episode of Top 5 Skyrim Mods of the Week. Robert Baratheon teams up with Benjen Stark to kill Lannisters, before adventuring with Tyrion and direwolf chum Shaggy Dog. Naturally it all ends in chickens.
Posted Apr 6, 2013 | 15:28 | 22,557 Views
Please mention in the description they're the Madden publisher first and foremost. The NFL monopoly EA has on the football gaming industry is deplorable. EA has failed to innovate Madden year after year, stretching its rudimentary outdated engine beyond its breaking point and consistently removing features only to re-add them later.
They've also utilized a multitude of controversial tactics. This includes a plethora of in-game advertising, failing to combat rampant online cheaters on account of their poor engine, and micro-transactions. Their marketing has gotten so bad, they hype up things like pylon physics and 3-D grass.
EA deserves this award year after year. It's unfortunate EA is twisting this infamous award to serve their benefit by painting themselves as the good guys while further pushing their marketing agendas.
Noted Windows blogger Paul Thurrott has claimed during the latest What The Tech episode (via NeoGAF) that the Xbox 720 will launch in November beginning at $300 for a subscription-based model. A standard model will sell for around $500, he said.
He described the platform overall as "expensive."
The Xbox 720 won't be the only new Xbox on shelves this season, Thurrott claimed. The writer said Microsoft is planning a $99 "Stingray" Xbox 360. He did not provide any further information about this platform.
Thurrott also shared information about the Xbox 720's reported always-online requirement. He said this a confirmed feature for the platform, claiming the system's notes specifically state that the Xbox 720 "must be Internet-connected to use."
The Xbox 720 reportedly stops functioning if an Internet connection drops for three minutes.
As for when the Xbox 720 could be announced, Thurrott said Microsoft is planning a reveal event on May 21. This matches up with an recent analyst report suggesting Microsoft was readying a reveal next month.
The blogger added that Microsoft will share further information about the Xbox 720 during two June events: the Electronic Entertainment Expo and the Build 2013 developer conference.
Thurrott further claimed that Microsoft was working on an entertainment-focused Xbox that would not play games. He said this device was called "Yumo," and speculated that Microsoft decided not to pursue this so as not to confuse the market.
A Microsoft representative was not immediately available to comment.
Thurrott is a noted Microsoft insider and runs Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows.
Experimental third-person multiplayer shooter game Defiance will this week be released in Australia on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. The open world, multiplatform MMO shooter is based on a science-fiction universe interconnected with a television show of the same name.
To be aired on television network Syfy from April 15, the Defiance television show pledges to change its storyline based on what players get up to in the game.
Defiance takes place on a futuristic Earth, transformed by a world-wide terraforming event. The game is set in the San Francisco Bay Area, whereas the TV series will take place in St. Louis.
To accompany the announcement developer Trion Worlds also released a full-length Join the Fight live action trailer, which shows the game's Ark Hunters fighting enormous antagonistic crustaceans known as Hellbugs.
Trion Worlds is no stranger to the massively multiplayer online genre, having released MMORPG Rift to positive reception in 2011. For more on Defiance, check out GameSpot's interview with the developers.
For the full details on games out this week, check out the list below.
April 11, 2013
Defiance (360, PS3, PC)
The Croods: Prehistoric Party! (3DS, DS, Wii, Wii U)
It's fantastic to have someone talking about this.
There's so many gamers out there who're getting sick and tired of the new "horror" and what's worse is that our voices are totally ignored.
To have someone formally acknowledge the want for real horror in the industry is such a relief.
On the eve of the Call of Duty Championships, we speak to Call of Duty captains from Australia's Team Immunity, Mindfreak eSports and Avant Garde about their style of play, the Australian eSports scene and more!
Posted Apr 4, 2013 | 7:34 | 1,368 Views
I'm Vilesyder from Avant Garde in the interview. I know we get a lot of stick from the general public for playing CoD, but ill happily take srs questions etc.
We're all pretty regular people with jobs/school/uni and this is our hobby. Most of us play console CoD because its EXTREMELY hard to find enough people to populate a game, let alone a consistent competitive FPS environment in Australia(I'd still be playing Gears of War or Far Cry or Quake if any of those were still supported). + There is actually developer support, if somethings OP, theres clear contact with devs and it'll get a nerf, if theres a glitch in a map we usually dont find out about it until its patched. ++ Nobody else other than LoL or SC2 is giving players the opportunity to play for a share of 1 million dollars.
@The_Beanster I'm sure everyone here has played and loved CoD4 and will S its D until the end of time. -Not much has changed since then, and I'm talking about the core movement and gunplay. Its smooth, fluid and the reason the majority of people play. It just works with very few hiccups.
The genre of game known as "roguelike" has traditionally been something of a tough sell to the mass market. Typical elements of these games, such as procedurally generated areas and the loss of valuable items and experience upon (often quite common) death, tend to turn off players who view them as too punishing. The Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series has been an anomaly in the genre: it retains a few key genre features, does away with a lot of the usual stress and penalties, and is all dressed up in a cute and cuddly Pokemon theme. However, as demonstrated by the newest installment, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity, toning down what makes a genre distinct can rob it of its appeal.
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity begins with you, the player, having awoken from a nightmare. That's not the only shock: you've been mysteriously transformed into a Pokemon and sent to a world where humans don't exist. When you meet another Pokemon companion (you select both your own Pokemon type and your companion's from five different options), you make fast friends and agree to help them achieve their goal of building a paradise for Pokemon. But that lofty goal is even tougher than it seems: the peaceful Pokemon societies have become corrupted by greed and violence. You and your pal can help restore order, however, by acting as freelance do-gooders: exploring strange mystery dungeons and completing requests to earn respect and rewards from your fellow Pokemon.
It's quite charming to see the Pokemon interact and speak directly with each other, which doesn't happen in the main games. But for such a simplistic premise and story, it is exceptionally wordy, and because there's no way to skip dialogue or increase the text speed, the story sequences transform from cute diversions to annoying barriers keeping you away from the rest of the game.
Not that the rest of the game is particularly great. When you aren't listening to various Pokemon woes, you're exploring randomly generated mystery dungeons to accomplish various missions, both mandatory and optional. By completing these dungeons, you're rewarded with items and the loot you collected. Some of these items can be used as material to clear land and build new facilities for your Pokemon paradise. The upgrading and expansion of your commune is the high point of the game: it's satisfying to watch your town grow from a wasteland to a bustling hub of Pokemon activity. The problem is that this is a small portion of the game compared to the story scenes and dungeon exploration.
In fact, it's the dungeon exploration that drags the game down more than anything else. While the dungeons are rooted in genre traditions of the roguelike--multi-floor structures of mostly randomly generated layouts, enemies, and loot--they strip away much of the danger, challenge, and thrill that make that sort of game compelling, leaving Gates to Infinity feeling like a dreadfully dull husk of a much better title. Dungeons are pretty but samey-looking, with nondescript backgrounds and floors often devoid of treasures that compel you to explore and put yourself at risk, but with plenty of generally easy enemies to impede your progress. Traps and hazards are also sparse, taking away the thrill of exploration and the strategy of using them against your foes. A hallmark of the roguelike is the danger and risk inherent in every step and action you take, as is using limited resources cleverly for survival. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon doesn't entirely remove these elements, but deemphasizes them to the point where the game becomes simplistic and boring. Some dungeons try to spice things up by implementing incredibly basic puzzles, but these do little to break up the monotony.
Combat, at least, is a bit more involved. As in the core Pokemon games, each creature has four different commands to use when fighting foes. Skills have limited usage, so you can't expect to repeatedly use effective techniques without eventually running short and needing to use restoration items. Each skill levels up independently, meaning that more frequently used techniques grow more powerful over time. Levels of Pokemon and skills carry over between dungeons, instead of resetting as they often do in other roguelikes.
After defeating them, you can also recruit new Pokemon to join your party, and take up to three CPU-controlled helpers with you in each dungeon. This makes the already diluted gameplay even simpler, because you can use a companion as an easy shield if you wind up in even the slightest bit of danger. This mechanic introduces its own set of annoyances, however: CPU companions set to attack tend to spam the most limited techniques like they're going out of style, wasting valuable uses on otherwise easy foes. You can also give basic generalized commands to your CPU companions that enable them to split up and explore on their own, which they also occasionally manage to do independently. If any one of them gets defeated (and they often do, typically by otherwise ridiculously weak, unseen foes), it counts as a defeat for everyone; it's either give up or set a StreetPass signal and hope somebody you walk by rescues you. If you give up, you lose some, but not all, of the items and funds you're carrying. It's frustrating to have an otherwise easy dungeon trek ruined by a Pokemon pal who wanders off and gets into trouble.
One of the better features of the game isn't even in the main game itself. The extraneous Magnagate AR feature lets you randomly generate a completely original dungeon using a picture of a circular object snapped with the 3DS's built-in camera. These dungeons tend to be more complex and challenging than those in the main game, featuring better (and more frequent) loot, tougher enemies, and more interesting Pokemon companions (along with the elimination of the "one falls and everyone fails" rule). These dungeons give high-quality items that can be transferred to the main game or stored for later re-exploration. But despite their relative improvement in quality, these dungeons are still pretty dull overall.
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity sits firmly in mediocrity: it's not poorly made and designed, but it fails to deliver much excitement or fun. It's also not clear just who this game's target audience is: the controls and mechanics are a bit too complex and confusing for younger players, but they're far too stripped and simplistic for older genre fans. What results is a game that ultimately isn't quite right for anyone.
The Wii-exclusive RPG will hit North American shelves this month for $39.99.
North American JRPG fans can finally experience the next Nintendo Wii RPG, when Pandora's Tower hits gaming store shelves later this month.
Publisher XSeed Games has confirmed that the game will be out on April 16 for $39.99. To coincide with the announcement, a North American website has been revealed.
Pandora's Tower originally launched in Japan in 2011, with an English version going on sale in Europe and Australia in April 2012. GameSpot praised its combat and time-management mechanics in its review, but criticised fixed camera angles and a lack of enemy variety. For more information, check out GameSpot's full review here.
Born and raised from a jungle-laden village in Sarawak, Malaysia, Jonathan Toyad has been playing games since the early 90s. He favors fighting games, RPGs, and rhythm titles above every other genre, and occasionally spaces out like Pavlov's dog to video game music on his iPod.
Actually there is a lot of misleading points in the video. The game is based on a 'Dream Story' which means it does not follow the anime or manga of One Piece. The English version is going to be released in North America and Europe in August. There is a total of 36 playable characters. Each character gets two musou and 4 musou bars. And when the enemy goes into Haki mode, you just have to go into haki mode in order to hit him or use your musou.
